Way back in 1979, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the Islamic militants who overthrew the Shah, invaded the American Embassy in Tehran, and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Six of the hostages specifically remember Ahmadinejad supervising their interrogations. Ahmadinejad denies this, of course, but one would expect that. After all, UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim of Austria always denied his Wehrmacht army involvement in Germany's WWII concentration camps and extermination of Jews, even though he was right in the middle of it. It wouldn't have helped Waldheim to admit his involvement in Nazi activities, and it wouldn't help Ahmadinejad to admit his involvement in Iran's revolution.
Now Ahmadinejad is the President of Iran. Apparently he and his supporters rigged the presidential elections last Friday in Iran, and now a significant number of Iranians are justifiably enraged and are rioting in the streets. Iran is even jamming the BBC's satellite broadcasts to try to prevent news reporting of Iran's civil unrest from inciting even more unrest.
Will this unrest become the Iranian version of Ukraine's Orange Revolution of 2004? In the Ukraine, the elections were annulled and held again, and then the challenger was declared the victor. It was a happy ending for Ukraine, at least at the time.
Somehow I doubt that will happen in Iran. Ahmadinejad and his peers came to power through blood. They will not relinquish power without a lot more blood.
2 comments:
People should know that Ahmadinejad is a wacho, he won the elections by winning the votes of the poor in Iran. As mucj as everyone is hopeful for moderate leaders to win in Iran as much as we know that reform needs time. Therefore the riots are not a start of a new revolution but a sign of good change to come. We need to sit and watch and push for diplomacy without the interferring of Neocons and Irsaelis
It's funny how the one-time revolutionary has turned into the target of a new generation of revolutionaries.
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